Spending $3,500 on a $2,900 budget

DEAL FOR REAL

Sticking to a vacation budget is a lot like eating Jell-O without a bowl:It’s better done by those who don’t mind things slipping through theirfingers. How do you decide what the budget actually contains, anyway? Do youjust count air, hotel and transfers, figuring that if you were to stay homeyou’d be spending money on meals and entertainment anyway? Do you allocate forgasoline only, or toss in the cost of an oil change and tuneup, which youwouldn’t otherwise have needed so soon?

Those are the questions I usually try to avoid answering when I take atrip, and here’s why: I’ve realized that the more I study a trip, the more I’mwilling to entertain various interpretations of reasonable pricing. My thoughtprocess goes like this:

TRIP TO HONG KONG

After looking around online for some cheap package deals, I come acrosssomething at Expedia.com and plug in my dream dates: May 26-June 2 fromChicago. I’m looking at a range of prices -- from a little over $2,700 toalmost $5,800 for two people -- that includes air, hotel and taxes; the pricevaries according to the hotel choice. I say to myself, “It looks like I canget the trip with a nice three-star hotel for about $2,900 per couple.”

Of course, when I look at the hotels in that price range, they’re not bad,but they’re not in the best locations either. If I spend $206 more -- that’sonly $17 per person per night for the six-night stay -- I can do better. So Ichoose the Eaton Hotel Hong Kong, a better three-star located on Nathan Roadin Hong Kong’s Kowloon neighborhood. My budget just increased to $3,106.

Then I take a closer look at the flights. The cheapest has outbound routingthrough San Francisco, a 22-hour ordeal. For just $79 per person more, I canget seats on the 151/2-hour non-stop flight. I reason that it’s worth payingthe $13-and-change per person per hour to arrive six or so hours earlier. Nowthe budget has expanded to $3,264. I look at the return flights and get ajolt: I see that the non-stop return will bring the total trip to $5,015, so Isettle for the 18-hour route through Tokyo.

Those who take the minimalist approach to budget planning might call offthe hounds right there. But as Expedia.com shows, there are options for allsorts of tours and transportation options I can add to the package rightonline. I choose the round-trip airport shuttle at $32/person; it’s morepractical than the airport train because it takes you door to door. And then Iadded the Half-Day Kowloon and New Territories Tour at $32/person and theHalf-Day Island Tour at $28/person. After all, it never hurts to give yourselfa low-stress overview of a city, even if you’ve been there before. So why notpay for that up front? Then I see another add-on, something that I ordinarilywouldn’t, strictly speaking, think of in terms of the vacation budget but verypractical nonetheless: an eight-day off-airport parking voucher for $84.

By the time I allow all of those items to adjust the budget, the total costfor the trip is $3,509. But that’s the great thing about budgets, isn’t it?They’re written on Jell-O and subject to change.
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